Despite the demanding running time, you don't get bored watching this great documentary. In times, when you are used to see disturbing news pop up almost every day, this film gives you, what we all need so badly, hope.
I had the pleasure to see this film at the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival), with the personal appearance of the camera man and coauthor, Reinhold Vorschneider, who talked a little about the making of. It was amazing to learn, that originally they did want to do a film about the small city of Stadtallendorf, not about the school in particular, or even the class of Herrn Bachmann.
Things changed around, and slowly the school shifted into focus, but not even then they had Bachmann's class in mind, but all 6th grades (there are 3 parallel classes). Only when they started filming it became obvious that this class had something special, an unusual teacher with a lot of empathy, patience and understanding, but still kept a certain discipline at the same time. Now the focus is on Bachmann and his pupils, other teachers do show up, but only on the sidelines. The three and a half hour are worth every minute watching it!
I had the pleasure to see this film at the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival), with the personal appearance of the camera man and coauthor, Reinhold Vorschneider, who talked a little about the making of. It was amazing to learn, that originally they did want to do a film about the small city of Stadtallendorf, not about the school in particular, or even the class of Herrn Bachmann.
Things changed around, and slowly the school shifted into focus, but not even then they had Bachmann's class in mind, but all 6th grades (there are 3 parallel classes). Only when they started filming it became obvious that this class had something special, an unusual teacher with a lot of empathy, patience and understanding, but still kept a certain discipline at the same time. Now the focus is on Bachmann and his pupils, other teachers do show up, but only on the sidelines. The three and a half hour are worth every minute watching it!